I think I'm going to start reverting to Slackware for boxes I use or maintain but that don't get a lot of update attention.

Up to this point, I've been using Arch Linux for mostly everything I have to mess with at home. This includes my desktop and netbook, the Asterisk box, a couple of utiliy machines in the workshop (things with GPIB and serial) and my girlfriend's desktop and laptop. Arch Linux is great at keeping things bleeding edge without having to build from source all of the time (not Gentoo) but still provides a great online package manager. It's great, so long as you `pacman -Syu` fairly often...

In particular, the Asterisk box and my girlfriend's computers don't get updated a lot. Mostly they sit around until something breaks or requires an update for a necessary feature. I don't mind doing regular updates on the two machines I use the most, but it's a hassle with the rest of them.

So, I think I'm going to start switching back to Slackware for the boxes that I use but tend to let slide on the updates. The first to "go back" will probably be either the Asterisk box or my girlfriend's laptop (which is getting an SSD soon anyway).

Any thoughts on this? I haven't ran Slackware as my desktop OS in quite a few years.

seems fine choice . but i never could use slackware.. its all manually find and download the files that are pre compiled or compile it yourself so im always just temped to use gentoo.. and the one time i actually took the liek 16hrs to download the install media which is bloated, the installer was like.. install everything or literally manually pick like package per package every lib ect which one you want to install which you dont, out of the hundreds/thousands.. and dont particularly know the dependancys for everything nor the name of every package contained on the dvd, so it was more bloated then ubuntu and im like.. stay away from ubuntu.. its a good choice if you want all the packages/ dont care much for the extra clutter.

Give FreeBSD a try. Not sure if it's an Asterisk juggernaut like Linux, but it really is a decent operating system.

Personally, I like Linux. But monthly kernel updates are a pain in the ass sometimes. One never knows what is gonna break, whether hardware support or applications, and it can be really frustrating on production boxes as well as desktops that are needed to be running for critical reasons.

I guess no other operating system has much on that though.

A high end Mac will outdated in about four years. And Windows Server costs a fortune to run in an work environment with over 50 users, too. (i know Windows "sucks" but Windows Server is pretty good at what it was designed for, it's just too expensive.).

Give FreeBSD a try. Not sure if it's an Asterisk juggernaut like Linux, but it really is a decent operating system.

if the purpose is to just have better stability/easier maintenance, if security isnt a big concern can always just run without grabbing updates until really want bsd is good choice, stuff like debian stable where if you do eventually get updates/upgrade dont really have to worry about stuff breaking has the sophisticated enough packagemanager it will grab all the dependancies ect.. can update it once a year if you want wont break anything . the older software has been worked to death much of the distros/flavors that arent so cutting edge will have good stability/upgrades/updates easily

I actually like FreeBSD quite well. I'm planning on using it for my home fileserver and Git repo server once I buy the SATA drives for it (it's getting 4x 2 TB drives). I especially like the solid ZFS and raidz support FreeBSD includes, which is my main choice for using it on the fileserver. I've got a FreeBSD VM running as a "test server" from my main Linux workstation under VirtualBox at the moment. I'm a big fan of OpenBSD as well, and even have NetBSD running on a Cobalt Qube2.

As it stands, I require Linux for some things, like Asterisk. My girlfriend also requires it for some of her schoolwork -- she's getting a PhD in mathematics, and a lot of the software she has to use will run under Linux but not *BSD. Nowadays, I could probably get FreeBSD or OpenBSD to meet most/all of my desktop computing needs, but work brings in more requirements that keep me running Linux. Not that it couldn't be done on a *BSD system, just the tools and documentation are in abundance for Linux.

Along with Debian, there's CentOS for long-term stability. It's been my experience that both of them (likely in the name of stability) fail to bring changes into their base distributions even slower than Patrick Volkerding brings them into Slackware. Plus I really hate yum

Give FreeBSD a try. Not sure if it's an Asterisk juggernaut like Linux, but it really is a decent operating system.

if the purpose is to just have better stability/easier maintenance, if security isnt a big concern can always just run without grabbing updates until really want bsd is good choice, stuff like debian stable where if you do eventually get updates/upgrade dont really have to worry about stuff breaking has the sophisticated enough packagemanager it will grab all the dependancies ect.. can update it once a year if you want wont break anything . the older software has been worked to death much of the distros/flavors that arent so cutting edge will have good stability/upgrades/updates easily

I tried debian stable once. It was a nightmare. To run a lot of modern stuff (by modern I'm talking not older than one year), it needed to be mixed with testing for modern libraries. Just to run stuff like the latest versions of PHP and MySQL. (I always compile PHP source).

Also, that's how I got my introduction to compiling a kernel. Sadly, it turned into one big custom kernel, apt-get configuration nightmare.

I tried debian stable once. It was a nightmare. To run a lot of modern stuff (by modern I'm talking not older than one year), it needed to be mixed with testing for modern libraries. Just to run stuff like the latest versions of PHP and MySQL. (I always compile PHP source).

yeh if need anything past about a year it requires user work.. but if it doesnt matter that its old then its just update whenever/ press upgrade once in awhile and dont have to do jack but its all pretty much 1-1.5years old or older software. have to get a switch so i can hook up my ss5 so i can try to figure out open bsd lol

I finally got around to putting Slackware 13.37 on an actual piece of hardware. It's an old 550 MHz Pentium III box that also runs Windows 98 for playing old games and imaging floppy disks. It comes with a 2.6.36 kernel, still using LiLo. I rebuilt a monolithic kernel right off, using the 2.6.36 sources that came packaged on the install DVD. Seems like a modern enough build environment for my needs so far -- I've gotten Asterisk and Matlab built and installed.